


Let Perfect Be The Enemy

by Trivena_Butterfly



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Dark, Gen, Grief/Mourning, No Good Choices, Post-Canon, Railroading, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:21:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28260813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trivena_Butterfly/pseuds/Trivena_Butterfly
Summary: Sparks cannot resist taking things apart in an attempt to improve them. Agatha really should know better, though.
Relationships: Agatha Heterodyne & Zeetha Daughter of Chump, Agatha Heterodyne/Gilgamesh "Gil" Wulfenbach, Agatha Heterodyne/Lars, Agatha Heterodyne/Tarvek Sturmvoraus
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15





	Let Perfect Be The Enemy

Agatha's tried a thousand ways. None of them are perfect.

She always loses somebody. Whether it's Doctor Beetle, or Adam and Lilith (Gil usually puts them back together, but it hurts just the same), or Lars ("just fun", Zeetha had called him early on, nearly every time around, but her _kolee_ had loved and left so many, and surely didn't remember how strong that first love was, or how deep the loss), or Theo (so many times); Zeetha, or Violetta, or even Moloch; she can't save them all. Gil and Tarvek she can't protect from themselves, or their families. Avoiding them completely doesn't help; if anything, it makes things worse, and sometimes events spiral out of control so fast that it's almost all she can do to reach Mechanicsburg while it still stands: to find her hidden workshop, her island in the storm, and start again.

Usually it's Tarvek who dies first, killed by some member or other of his family (and she has considered, sometimes, simply burning them all; the next time, they would be alive, as if nothing had happened, because nothing _did_ ), and she doesn't find out for days, or even weeks; long enough for the attempt to not be a complete waste (but even once is still too many). Sometimes it's Gil, and when it is, she's often close enough to see the look on his face, to feel as if it's personally her fault; if she saves him on the next attempt, the Castle usually kills him later, and it's not predictable enough, too unstable, for the next try to work every time.

Sometimes she herself comes far too close, and Agatha has to remind herself to be more careful, because if _she_ dies, there will be nobody to start over.

There are too many variables. She cannot control them all.

No matter how many times she tries, there is one choice she avoids, every time, until at last she reaches the conclusion she was hoping would not be true.

And now she sits at dinner, a glass of wine in front of her, making polite conversation, about to take the last step onto a path that she won't be able to leave; the same path she took the first time, and the only one she knows of that might get all three of them out of this alive with most of Europa intact, and the threat of the Other destroyed.

She pushes those thoughts aside, and tries to forget. It wouldn't do to spill the wrong secrets, not now.

_I'm so sorry, Lars._

Agatha drinks.

**Author's Note:**

> The bulk of this was written in a fit of inspiration following a lot of discussion of timeloop and alternate-timeline fics, plus reading too many Jossed alternate-timeline fics, and thinking about how each one gets a little closer to the true events as more of the canon story is published.
> 
> The full phrase is "Never let perfect be the enemy of good enough."


End file.
